Monday, October 13, 2008

Longevity Village

Just being here adds years to your life -- or at least that's what elderly natives, eager government officials and hopeful visitors in this remote place contend. Poyue and several other villages near the Vietnam border in China's Guangxi Autonomous Region comprise a "longevity cluster." They claim an inordinate number of centenarians, including one said to be 113 years old. The surrounding Bama county, with a population of 250,000, has 74 centenarians, or about one for every 3,400 people, according to Luo Ronghui, a local tourism official. That's a far higher incidence than in the U.S. or even in Japan, which has one of the longest average life expectancies in the world.

You live long enough, you'll see everything.

(image credit: A village in Guangxi's Bama county, China Span, wsj.com)